by Jason Steinhorn and Mark Kohler

New standards are making the delivery of Web-based and enhanced content alongside television a reality. This article describes the ATVEF enhanced television standard and the requirements for designing ATVEF-compatible receivers.

by Michael Barr

Merely adding a protocol stack and networking API to your software doesn't make you TCP/IP ready. You'll also need to assign your product a MAC address.

by Michael Barr

The Internet Protocol (IP) is the glue that holds an internet together. Here's a compact implementation of the IP layer for embedded C programmers.

by Michael Barr

If your embedded system is on a network, the key question is: what subset of TCP/IP will you include in your product?

by Mark Kohler

The first generation of network processors is finally here. But what are they good for and how do they work?

Major semiconductor manufacturers are starting to sell a new type of integrated circuit, the network processor. Network processors are programmable chips like general purpose microprocessors, but are optimized for the packet processing required in network devices.

by Christopher Brown and Michael Barr

Which is the most convenient end on your system? The choices are big endian and little endian.

Some human languages are read and written from left to right; others from right to left. A similar issue arises in the field of computers, involving the representation of numbers.

by Michael Barr

The address resolution protocol provides a necessary bridge between physical and logical addresses on a TCP/IP network.

Every system on a TCP/IP network has two addresses, one physical and one logical. The address resolution protocol (ARP) provides a necessary bridge between these two addresses.

by Michael Barr

As engineers design more and more products with embedded computer systems that require connections of one sort or another, we've got to pay attention to the ease with which these connections can be made. Short-range wireless protocols offer an attractive alternative to wired connections.

by Nigel Jones

Quite a few embedded systems include multiple processors. Sometimes these processors stand in isolation, but more often they're required to communicate over a multidrop bus such as EIA RS-485 or RS-422.